


The Shores of Lethe

by LonelyLavenderBones



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Choking, Dark fic, Dog BB-8, Eventual Smut, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gore, Horror, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, It's foggy and grimy and Victorian, It’s the opposite of Botched on E!, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Monster Kylo Ren, Murder, Obsession, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey and Franken!Kylo are very soft, Stupid Mystery Elements, Surgery, The Author Regrets Everything, The world is cruel, These two are just victims of fate, Touch-Starved Kylo Ren, it's softer than it sounds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2020-11-08 05:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyLavenderBones/pseuds/LonelyLavenderBones
Summary: Frankenstein AU. Kylo Ren was born on the night Ben Solo died, a monster made from a dead man's remains at the hands of the mad Dr. Snoke. Though his short life has been cruel, he has found a reprieve in watching the world from a distance.Rey Johnson has spent her life struggling and picking pockets, living one moment to the next, hoping that she might just catch a break. When a mysterious American rolls into town looking for his long lost son, she's sure that she's found her break. That is, until the American turns up dead and his son-- a doctor in training-- seems to be the likely suspect.As Rey tries to outrun her past, fate has tethered her to the unnatural Kylo Ren. For better or for worse.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This little fic was inspired by, of course, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and partially by Penny Dreadful. Of course, John Whale's Frankenstein adaptations are near and dear to my heart so I'm sure little bits and pieces snuck into this fic as well. 
> 
> I'm really just looking to have fun playing with some horror and <s>tragedy</s> tropes while letting myself being a little obnoxious in my writing style. 
> 
> Please take a look at the tags as they will be updating with each chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snoke plays God. Luke plays Victor. Kylo never asked for any of this.
> 
> Please check the tags. They will be updating as the fic goes on.

_ _

_I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world._

_-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,_

_ Introduction of Frankenstein_

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾ 

Heralded into the world by thunder, Kylo Ren was born fully formed in a dead man’s body, brought back to life not by mercy, but by the hubris in which only mankind is capable. Lightning captured from the night sky sparked his life, surging through him as the energy lit his veins and jolted his still body into motion.

Kylo’s first memory was not of kindness, but of the searing pain of the bolt as his muscles began to convulse at the galvanization of the electrical current forcing his body to wake. His jaw clenched tightly; howls of pain stuck in his throat as mere growls as he waited for the vicious sensation to cease.

Vision locked on the night sky, the flashes of light played as if to mock his pain and the claps of thunder like laughter from the heavens themselves.

He felt the presence of others surround him as the skylight began to close, the cold rain no longer barraging his bare flesh.

Everything was a blur, and nothing made sense to him in those first moments. Not the words being said, or the clatter of movement around him. Kylo had no thoughts, only feeling the raw fear and the anger that was left within him as the shock slowly began to wane.

“We should have put a strap in his mouth to bite down on, Dr. Snoke,” a cold voice sighed. “I wouldn’t want to replace the tongue when we were so lucky to have a specimen that was so fully intact…”

“Quiet!” another voice hissed, this one graveled with age. “Worry about its tongue when we know if we’ve finally known success. We can replace it with yours for all I care, Hux. It would save me a lifetime of headaches.”

Bound by the ankles and wrists by leather straps, he mindlessly fought against his restraints at the first reprieve. His eyes darted around the room, but it was murky, lacking light, and his mind didn’t know what to make of the bloody equipment scattered across the table that rested beside him.

Suddenly, a hand was on his wrist, firmly pressed against his pulse even as Kylo continued to struggle.

“It’s alive,” the older voice said, his tone laced with an astonished chuckle. “I’ve done it! This isn’t just another dead toad dancing at the beckon of a schoolboy’s clumsy hand. There’s a pulse! Come, Skywalker. Come look at your nephew.”

Kylo finally found a place to rest his gaze. A man trembled just a distance from him, and, dimly, he felt the light of recognition. He was an old man, dressed in a tattered suit and grayed with fear but still there was something familiar about him that he couldn’t deny. The fear in him didn’t fade, but there was at least a comfort in sight of the man despite the dismay that warped his soft features.

Kylo felt his lips move to say something, but he knew no words; only the desperate drive to communicate with the man even as he slowly backed away from his visage. 

“This isn’t right,” Skywalker’s voice broke as he manically gestured in the direction of the gaze that he could not bring himself to meet. “That isn’t my nephew. That’s not Ben. You’ve created a monster, Snoke—”

“I’ve created life, Skywalker!” Snoke growled, grabbing Kylo’s arm tightly even as his muscles strained to break free from his grasp. “You are just too cowardly to see it. Too afraid of the future. This—what I’ve created—is the future!”

“No!” Skywalker cried before fumbling with the doorknob with trembling fingers. “I was too cowardly to leave him alone—in the past where he belonged. Ben Solo is dead. What you’ve done is an act against God!”

And with that, Skywalker fled. The memory ended there, the frantic longing in his chest for the man to turn back and understand his pleading groans. The words were vague but always remained faintly in the back of his mind.

He was not Ben Solo. He was a monster born of pain, and was a sight to flee from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty short for me! Please think of this first chapter as more of a prologue than an actual chapter. I just wanted to get Kylo's "birth" posted as a nice toe dip into the weird Victorian horror-scape I've got planned. I've never written a fic with the intention of it being a dark fic, so... uh, I'm sorry.
> 
> This is going to get weird, guys... Let me know what you think.


	2. Pleasure Nigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey catches up with an old friend after finding a new one in a precarious position. Snoke is not a good doctor and Kylo is not having it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for coming back after that short opener! I just want to say... I am not a doctor, nor am I an old timey doctor. I tried my best to be kind of-sort of accurate.
> 
> As a disclaimer, I ask that you do not raise the dead and then treat them poorly. If you raise the dead, be a cool parent. Let them drink in the house, buy them name brand clothes, and give them a Lunchable.
> 
> Also, the tags actually apply this chapter, so check them.

_She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;_  
_And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips_  
_Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,_  
_Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:_  
_Ay, in the very temple of Delight_  
_Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,_  
_Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue_  
_Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;_  
_His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,  
_ _And be among her cloudy trophies hung._

_-John Keats,  
_ _Ode to Melancholy_

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾

** _One Year Later_ **

** _The Village of Chandrila_ **

** **

“What can you tell us?” the constable asked, his chestnut gaze sharp, yet offering a sympathetic kindness with his slight warmth.

Rey blinked, body still shaking as she clutched the cup of tea that she had been offered. She hadn’t stopped shaking since the evening before, and her throat still ached with the shrill screams that seemed like they might rise again in her chest. Raising her lips to the warm liquid, she let the heat comfort her throat even as her shivers worsened. 

She could blame it on the cold November morning if she was pressed, but she doubted that the man in front of her would believe her.

The porcelain cup clattered against the saucer despite how she tried to still her hands as the silence broke in the quiet office. She set the cup down in front of her as she folded her hands in her lap, clasping them tightly as if forcing them still would bring her a sense of calm. The sun had long risen, and it felt as if she were in the jolting moment of pure terror after waking from a nightmare, only as if that breath of a moment were stretched into hours.

She was no coward, raised on the dirty streets of London as a pickpocket, but even she hadn’t been ready for the sight that had been waiting for her in the shadows of the narrow alleyway in the hazy hours between midnight and the breaking light of dawn. She had witnessed duels and knife fights, watched men beat each other bloody for sport, but she had never seen something so cruel.

Every time that she blinked, she saw him clearly. Bare as he was the day he was born; his wrinkled body had been laid sprawled and crooked and abandoned. Never had she seen so much blood, nor had she seen a man opened up so that she could see ivory bone cracked—

“Miss Johnson?” The constable, Finn Storm, leaned forward as the gentleness that had been hidden in his gaze finally reached the timber of his voice. “What can you tell us about the American? You said you knew him? That you recognized the body—”

“I recognized _him_,” Rey said pointedly as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “I recognized Johanne Solo. He’s not just… He’s not just what was left in that alley. He was a man and a kind one.”

He wasn’t what was left slaughtered, left behind by whatever monster had attacked him.

“So, you were… _familiar_ with Mr. Solo?” He cleared his throat, but he didn’t break eye contact as he made his subtle accusation.

“No. _No._ You know my sins well, _Constable_ Storm, so I would ask that you wouldn’t imply such a thing.”

Though she would never fault a woman for selling her body to get by, she had yet to turn to that specific trade. Every day she was a little bit hungrier and a little bit closer to making coin however she could. Still, she couldn’t imagine sharing a bed with the older gentleman that they were speaking of. It would have been like laying with her father, and she would never have been hungry enough to do that. “We were friends. Nothing more.” 

“I apologize,” Storm cleared his throat as he glanced away as if ashamed by his own question. They had known each other for a long time and had been friendly when they were younger. In that moment, sitting across from each other, it almost felt as if they were playing pretend with the forced propriety, but she knew better.

Women who had sticky fingers and men who spent most of their time enforcing the law rarely made such a friendship work, and they were no exception to that rule.

“But…” The officer cleared his throat, seeming to struggle with their predicament as she did. “How does a pickpocket befriend a new-moneyed American who just happens to be found murdered three-thousand miles away from home?”

“Well, he caught me picking his pocket,” Rey murmured simply into her cup of tea as she felt herself finally start to settle down. It was a fond memory, if not a bit troubled, but she had very few kind memories so she couldn’t be picky with what she had. “Mr. Solo had this lovely golden chain hanging from his jacket. It turns out it was connected to a pocket watch. It had these lovely etchings… He caught me quickly and was kind enough not to turn me in if I returned his watch.”

Storm paused at this, his brows furrowing with thought. “There wasn’t a watch found on the—” He rethought his words as Rey’s hands started to shake once more. “A watch wasn’t found on Mr. Solo. Nothing was.”

“Do you think this was a robbery gone wrong?” Even as she spoke her head began to shake as if to argue with her own words. It would be better if it was, more understandable than the scenarios that ran through her head, but it was a naïve question that she wished had died on the tip of her tongue. “I suppose a robber wouldn’t take everything from a man. Who needs another man’s knickers?”

Mr. Solo had been genial with her even after she had stolen from him, remarking that he had liked her finesse, but she needed to have lighter hand. Even though she hadn’t been quite sure what it was that had made him rich, she had quickly gotten the idea that it hadn’t started completely scrupulous.

He had treated her to a long lunch, and they had caught on quickly, and even though he had said that he was only in the city for a little while, he had wanted to meet again after his task was finished. She had gotten the implication that he might have a job for her, and she had been eager for it. The new world had to offer hope that London or Chandrila could never give a woman of no prospects like herself, but that hope died butchered in a back alley.

“It’s very, very unlikely,” he answered. He treaded lightly, but Rey could tell that he couldn’t avoid the details for much longer. “I might be young, Miss Johnson, but I have never seen anything like that…” He covered his mouth as he gave a curt cough as he changed the subject. A few officers had heaved at the sight of the scene, losing the contents of their stomachs. Their vomit had been washed away along with the blood and innards left at the scene of the crime, the alleyway cleaner than it had been before the incident. “Do you know why he was in Chandrila?”

“Mr. Solo said that he was looking for his son,” Rey replied, her mind starting to weave down paths that she’d rather not follow. “He said that the young man was troubled, but he hoped to find him and bring him back home.”

“Troubled how?”

“He said that his son—Benjamin, but I think he went by Ben… He seemed to call him Ben, mostly—” She pursed her lips briefly, deciding that it didn’t matter. “That Ben had a hot streak, an angry streak,” she continued as she tried to remember the conversation clearly. “That he was a mercurial sort of fellow that got himself in trouble when it came to… to fighting and occasionally dueling. Mr. Solo said that he was a bright man, so he had thought that he must have come over here to… to run from the trouble he had made for himself in Boston and maybe get back to his studies.”

“What does this man look like?” Storm asked eagerly. “Did he describe him to you?”

“Even better. He had a picture… A photograph, like the ones that people sit for. I think he had a few, so he let me keep it.” It had been encased in silver and she suspected he had pitied her more than thought that she would be the one to solve the mystery that was his missing son. The intention was most likely that she would sell the case and eat for a little while or find a warm bed for a couple of nights that didn’t require sharing her body for shillings. 

The case was lovely, obviously cared for and well crafted, but the man in the photo was almost more impressive. She had seen handsome men in her lifetime and let her eyes linger a little longer than she should on a passing dandy, but Ben Solo had been made so beautifully, her breath had caught for a moment.

She often doubted that there was a God, but if there was, he had picked the oddest features to bring together a handsome man. A dark mane of hair framed his oblong face that held a surly expression. Rey had heard that it took a long time to take a photograph, so often it was easier on the person posing to keep a somber expression. The way his brows rested, and his full lips pinched ever so slightly, she had decided the expression was of his character and not due to need for stillness.

Rey wasn’t a woman who thought often of love, but the more her eyes lingered on his photo, the more she found herself softened by the mere idea of the man. Infatuation was for fools who had never known true hunger, she liked to believe, but there was something about Ben’s photograph that made her want to be a little foolish.

“That’s perfect,” Storm said as he went to pour himself a cup of tea. “You wouldn’t happen to have the image on hand, would you?”

“No, I don’t, but I could bring it to you.”

Part of her wanted to keep it, wanting to keep this piece of Mr. Solo and his handsome son to herself. Rey knew, though, that she had no need for the photograph of a stranger no matter how compelling she found that stranger to be.

“If you could bring it as soon as possible, Miss Johnson, I’m sure it would help our investigation immensely. Do you know what he was studying?”

She didn’t like how Finn asked the question. It was as if he had already known what the answer would be, but there was no possible way that he could. Why else force her to wait around in the station, listening to the other officers speak both in excitement and in terror over her discovery? It had only made things more difficult to bear, listening to the busy men chatter over the details.

The words whispered by the officers played through her mind, worse than the image that refused to leave her.

_The body had been cut clean—_

_They said that he was missing his innards. Well, mostly. A string of the poor bastard’s guts was still hanging loose when that girl found him—_

_No blood in the alleyway, but plenty all over that sod. Wrinkled ass completely nude—_

_The bruising around his neck… I don’t think he died of a stabbing. _

“I think he was studying to be a physician,” she whispered, her throat aching as she swallowed sobs that threatened to rise. The realization poured over her like a cold wave as the pieces fell so neatly into place. How could a son so dearly loved butcher his father like he was nothing better than an animal?

The face of a mysterious madman dragging his blade over Mr. Solo was replaced by the man in her photograph, alabaster skin drenched in his own father’s blood.

_That’s not right. Can’t be_, her instinct was screaming, and it was rarely ever wrong. Logic warred heartily, though, as the clearest answer was Mr. Solo’s medically trained son was also his butcher. _Wrong. It’s not him. Can’t be. _

She set down her cup of tea with a clatter as she got to her feet, bringing the back of her hand to her mouth. “I don’t want to be here anymore, Finn. I-I can’t bear it, and I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

“Rey, sit. This isn’t over.” He lowered his voice to a whisper as he spoke through gritted teeth. “I understand that you’re upset, but you found the body. You are the only person in this village that knows anything about this other Solo. If you think I’m going to let you walk out that door just so you can disappear into the wind—”

“I-I’m staying at the Walton Tavern,” she interrupted. For a moment, she wondered if this was a flame of friendly concern or frustration at her for cutting their talk short. Rey let herself believe it was the former as he seemed to cool at the mention of the inn.

“I’ve got a room,” she explained as she pulled her shawl around her lithe frame tightly. “At least for a few more days. You can come by and I can give you that photograph of Mr. Solo’s son.”

“Why don’t you come by for dinner? Rose told me that she admires your spirit, so I know she would love to have you over for a meal. We’ve even got an extra room if you don’t want to stay at the inn.”

“I can’t do that to you or your good Christian wife.” Rose was a decent woman who saw the good in people at first sight, and Rey didn’t want her to realize that when the luster of her courage and fortitude came off, she was really nothing more than a starving girl with who had lived on the streets for too long.

“It’s the Christian thing—”

“To do,” she finished helpfully. She glanced away, breaking the familiarity as she tried to rebuild their awkward walls from earlier in the conversation. “Well, He and I may not be on good terms, but I know that it would be better for you not to have a woman with a reputation in your home, Constable Storm. I’ve got enough for food and shelter… And once everything has blown over, I’m going as far west as you can.”

“Rey, drop the Constable Storm nonsense.” The furrow of his brow deepened as he sat forward, puzzling with her words. “What are you talking about? Going west? To Ireland?”

“To America… and the frontier.”

“What the hell is in America?” With that shock, the last walls of ‘Miss Johnson’ and ‘Constable Storm’ truly came tumbling down, and for that, Rey felt herself uneasy but grateful. He didn’t ask about how she had been able to afford to start over in America, and she hoped to be in New York before he ever found out.

“You go far enough west and there’s lonely frontier men looking for wives, I heard. I thought I would go when Mr. Solo made his voyage back with his son, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen now. I’ve got a little that I’ve been holding on for a rainy day. I think it’s been raining for a while and I just have been too clueless to notice that I’m already soaked to the bone.”

“You could find a husband here.” She could see him mentally going through a catalogue of eligible bachelors in his head. His closest friend, Poe Dameron, would gladly let her warm his bed and perhaps even carry on an affair with her, but she doubted that he would ever let her be his wife. Like Finn, he had a promising future and she had no place in it. She had the barest of educations and a life of hard lessons that the aristocracy would never appreciate.

“It’s more of the reputation I’m trying to leave behind. I don’t want to be the pickpocket sleeping in penny situps for the rest of my life. I’ve got enough for a ticket in steerage. I think a new life is just what I need.”

Silence passed between them as they both searched for what to say. Finn was the one to break it with a simplehearted, “I’ll miss you.”

“They’ve got boats and trains,” she laughed weakly, realizing that she had missed Finn for so long that she had almost grown numb to it. The idea of traveling farther than she could even really comprehend reopened that wound and she needed to flee from the old pain before it overwhelmed her. “If I find a man who’s made his fortune in gold, I’ll pay for you and Rose to have a round trip.”

“Well, I guess all I can say is go west, young Rey.” He smiled a wide smile that made her stomach flip. The same one that had made her jealous of learning that he was marrying Rose and that had made it so easy for her to befriend him in the first place.

“I’ll be sure to bring you that picture of Mr. Solo’s son.” She stood abruptly, unable to take any more of the talk. It was too much for one day.

Rey gave him a smile from over her shoulder before she lowered her head and ducked through the station of gossiping officers. She took a deep breath as she drank in fresh air before wishing that she had taken one last sip of that warm tea before she started striding down towards the docks. 

The Walton Inn wasn’t the finest place in town, but it was enough for Rey. Dingy was the most apt word for it, looking as if a strong enough storm came off the coast it would blow into the sea without much provocation.

She entered, thankful for the fire burning in the fireplace as she caught site of the owner waving her over to the bar.

Maz was a tiny woman, who was seemingly ancient and partially blind, but somehow managed the rowdy tavern with ease. Her wrinkled expression was stern as she slid a bottle of whiskey down to a disheveled regular down at the bar, a man who went by the simple moniker DJ. Rey barely had a moment to glance at him before he had taken the bottle and wandered out the front of the tavern. The sound of Maz clearing her throat brought her back to the woman in front of her. From behind thick glasses, she peered up at Rey’s face searchingly.

“A man came looking for you here. Big, ugly, said his name was Plutt.”

Rey settled down on a barstool, her stomach sinking. Before the prior incident she had just left behind her, she thought there was nothing worse than those words.

“You didn’t tell him that I was here, did you?” Rey fought a wave of worry that threatened to shake through her. She never thought she would be frustrated by fear, but her day had been long and full to the brim of the emotion.

“No, but he was pissed about something. Swore me up and down, said that I was a liar, and demanded to know where you were. I didn’t tell him, but after you were out all night… You had me worried, girl. He seemed serious.”

“I was at the one place he would have never looked.” She rubbed her hands together, distracting herself and warming her hands from her brisk walk. If Plutt was nosing around Chandrila, she would have to exchange her ticket and get out of town sooner than she originally thought. She would have liked to stay to see Finn’s investigation wrapped up, but it didn’t look like she had time to witness it’s conclusion.

“Where?” Maz poured her a glass of sherry, her tone softening. She pushed the cup towards her.

Rey shrugged as she took a grateful sip. “The constabulary.”

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾

“He’s truly a wonderful specimen,” Lady Phasma whispered, covering her pink lips with a gloved hand as she watched the doctor work as if that would hide her morbid delight. “Such a breakthrough, Dr. Snoke. What differences have you found between someone living and… and someone brought back from—”

“_It_ hasn’t been brought back from the dead,” Hux interrupted as he handed the doctor a clamp from the tray of bloody, rusty instruments. “I went to school with the man that most of the body is made from and, trust me, it is not any sort of man that came back that night, nor especially is it the gentleman that I once knew. _It_ was brought to life, but there was no resurrection of any soul… This is the closest you’ll ever get to the damned, Lady Phasma, without having to knock on the gates of Hell first.”

_Such disdain, Hux, _Kylo thought, paralyzed on the slab with only his eyes darting back and forth from the noblewoman to the doctor’s assistant. Could he feel the heat of his gaze, Kylo wondered? While the rest of him was frozen he doubted that his eyes could be read, but still he attempted a glare only to get no reaction. 

Hux enjoyed reminding him that he was nothing like the man who had essentially been the donor of his body, but Kylo had begun to realize that he had no more love for Ben Solo than he had for the man made of his remains. Perhaps he missed having the man to hate so much so that he had passed that hatred onto Kylo. Perhaps it was yet another thing he had inherited from Solo. Perhaps Hux was merely a hateful man who oozed with venom like a damned snake.

_Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… _

Kylo preferred letting his mind wander during surgeries, thinking of maybes and perhapses and what-ifs that would never be answered.

He couldn’t bring himself to look down where his skin was carefully peeled back. Where the doctor was carefully clamping and retracting muscles, veins, and arteries to show his surgical prowess. Snoke thought his fingers as limber as ballet dancers and just as precise. No one watching would know otherwise with Snoke's confidence. Only Kylo knew how careless the dance was. After all, it was his body—not Snoke’s, not Hux’s, and certainly not _Ben’s_—and he would feel the aftereffects that no curious colleague or secretive donor would care to know about.

Clamping down another vein in Kylo’s shoulder Snoke paused for a moment, gesturing for the noblewoman to get a closer look at the exposed muscles. 

“I doubt you’ll ever get ever get a look as exciting as this, Lady Phasma,” Snoke crooned as he retracted a bit of muscular fiber to expose arteries that pulsed with every pound that his heart made. That was the show the woman had come to see. A healthy grant from the Phasma estate in exchange for viewing a live dissection.

“It’s marvelous,” she agreed in a quiet breath. “Tell me, can he feel any of this? He hasn’t moved once, but his eyes… They’re open.”

“Don’t worry yourself, my dear,” Snoke assured his potential donor as he retracted more muscle, exposing more of the underneath to the woman. “While anesthesia doesn’t take, I’ve concocted something especially potent specifically for this creature. It’s a one of a kind medication for a one of a kind creature. He can’t feel a thing.”

_You are a liar, Creator. _Kylo could feel everything, and it was agony. As if hearing his thought, Snoke clamped down another vein with an intensity that nearly caused it to burst.

The serum paralyzed his body making him immobile, but it didn’t numb any of the pain. Instead every nerve within him sat on edge, anticipating the torment to come. From the blade cutting into his flesh, to his skin carefully being pulled away with the edge of a scalpel, and to the fiber of his muscles being retracted there was no reprieve.

His mind wouldn’t cave under the strain, allowing him to faint into painless bliss nor would any of the anesthesia that Snoke claimed worked on the average man take him under.

During the first exploration under Snoke’s hand, he had wished for darkness he had come from to take him back. After a year of life under the surgeon’s knife he knew that he would never be so lucky to have his desperate wish granted. There was no screaming or crying, though he could feel the noise caught in his throat at every pull and every cut.

At the mere thought of it, every pain seemed to grow louder. Retractors biting and clamps pinching, places that should have never been touched felt as if they were seared by the slight movement in the open air.

_Don’t think about it. _

_Don’t think about how your skin is folded over, draped over your shoulder._

The air drifting over the exposed dermis made the loose flap seem alien against his shoulder, like it wasn’t his own. Careful pressure applied by straps and surgical apparatuses created a slight numbing sensation, but it wasn’t enough to make skin striped away from muscle sensationless.

It wasn’t the worst of it. The striping of his skin from the muscle was awful, of course, he would never claim that there was a lack of pain there, but there was a reason he envied common men with their liquor and anesthesia. Once the cutting and pulling was over it was never so bad as whatever Snoke planned to do within. 

_Don’t think about the hooks retracting the muscle and sinew. _

Every pull and tug threatened to tear his muscles as he was plucked as a living harp. The retracting of muscles the slowest chord pluck as Snoke played his symphony of sickness. 

_Don’t think… _

_Don’t… _

A stifled groan escaped his throat.

“What was that?” Lady Phasma asked a flicker of fear passing over her face as if for the first time she realized that he was living and not merely a medical corpse of display. 

“Gas escaping the body,” Snoke explained with another lie, relieving the woman of her brief panic as he described him as nothing more than a bloating corpse. With force, he pulled another string of fiber stretching it beyond the usual discomfort to terrible torment. “The thing _was_ dead for a portion of time. It happens from time to time as when we rot… Well, it isn’t a pretty thing to discuss.”

Finding a spot on the ceiling, he decided to go back to his maybes, perhapses, and what-ifs. The pain wouldn’t go away for a while and his body was trapped, but his mind could go elsewhere.

When he wasn’t laying on the slab, being dissected, he had books. Reading had come quickly to him and Snoke supposed it was because he was just retracing old paths that in his brain that Solo had paved for him. None of his memories came, but certain tasks came easily to him and reading had been one of them.

Sometimes he liked to try and recite poetry to himself, going over verses as if that could drive out the sound of metal against bone or scraping of skin parting from muscle. If he knew more of the world outside of the manor walls than perhaps, he might have been able to imagine himself somewhere else; but he had always been in the manor, so the outside world was elusive beyond the descriptive words of other men.

When verses wouldn’t come to mind, he thought of the world he saw from the window of the attic he stayed in much of the time. There was a village a short walk away that he could see faintly down the hillside on good days when the frets didn’t roll off the sea, blanketing the landscape in mist.

“Have you had to replace any parts?” Lady Phasma asked. “It can’t be easy with only the village to rely on.”

“Mmm… We came across a corpse just a few days ago,” Hux explained. “Older, too old really to get anything of and far too old to attempt to do what the doctor achieved here with Kylo. When we examined the body there was really nothing of worth.”

“You didn’t even want to attempt a transplant to see if it could be done?”

“We only have one specimen,” Snoke chided. “It’s too risky to be playing with giving him an elderly man’s kidney or lung…” He continued to poke his way through Kylo’s shoulder, exploring his muscles for the sake of exploration. “Maybe if I ever make another, I’ll be able to do something riskier.”

Kylo continued to focus on the world outside that attic window, of a girl who walked the path up from the village often with a little orange and white dog dancing around her feet.

_A terrier_, his mind provided as it had with words and letters. _A rat catcher. _

On the first day he had noticed her, he had dreaded her long walk up the road as he dreaded most travelers. If they stopped at the manor, it meant he was back on the slab and under the knife. If they kept walking, it only reminded him that there was more to the world beyond Snoke’s manor and the village which brought a different sort of pain. One that made his chest feel hollow and seem to pang with an unfamiliar hunger.

She had been dressed in faded gray and wrapped in a light shawl despite the howling cold, strands of chestnut hair struggling to stay tamed in a bun on the base of her neck. Her skirts whipped around her as the wind pushed her up the road, revealing worn boots and cream-colored stockings on lithe legs all the up to right above her knees. The little dog hopped up as she pressed her skirts down, biting on the hem as if to help its mistress regain her propriety.

A burst of shocked laughter peeled from her lips, raising impossibly above the bluster and through the glass. It had been the first sound of true joy that he could remember hearing, but it was one that he vaguely recognized. There was no menace, no hidden meaning. In that sound was pure joy and alone in his room, he could pretend that it was only for him.

Even with the massive library of books that Snoke allowed him to pick through and the occasional lesson from Hux, it wasn’t enough to occupy him.

She continued to walk up the same road once every week for each week he had lived, and never once did she stop to glance at the manor for more than a few moments.

_No_, Kylo reminded himself. _She had stopped once. Walked straight up to the gate and paused… She had wrapped her fingers around the front gate, peering into the courtyard of the estate. _

He hadn’t been able to see her properly from where the gate was, the angle making it too difficult to see what she was doing where he watched from the attic. From what he could see, she seemed to be just standing there and peeking in while her dog ran up and down the iron fencing. 

Kylo had watched, mentally urging her to push the gate open and let that day be the day that she was a guest to his Creator. There was no need to be curious about a stranger, obsessed and filled with eager restlessness as he waited for her to walk along the country road past the manor. Never had he seen her face clearly, nor had he spoken to her, but still he felt his fixation on the girl grow.

Would she look upon him in terror, recoiling at the unnatural creature that was created at the hands of a man? Snoke’s guests had always blanched as the doctor dramatically pulled back a sheet from his paralyzed form, the man seeming to love the theatricality of the reveal. It wasn’t a frequent thing, being put on display as if he were just a prized specimen in a collection, but on the occasions that it happened Snoke made sure to make a spectacle of him.

The girl stood there, but it was only a few moments before he saw Hux rush the gate, his tone sharp as he shooed her away to disappear in the mist off the moors.

After that, she didn’t stop again, but he had grown to accustom to waiting at his window on Sunday afternoons just to catch a glimpse of her. She was neither positive nor negative, but the neutrality of her presence was comforting. Even if she never knew it, she had become the only part of his routine that he found that he was fond of.

If Snoke stitched him off soon, he might be able to catch sight of her in a couple of hours. 

“Does he function as a man normally would?” the lady asked, continuing her inquiry. This question brought him crashing back down onto the operating table, acutely aware of the forced aloofness in her question. “Obviously he breathes and pumps blood, but does he eat, sleep, and… well, everything else?”

“He rarely sleeps, nor does he eat,” Snoke explained as he, blessedly, he started to remove the retractors from his muscle fiber. Kylo would have heaved a sigh of relief at his obliviousness if it had not been for the serum just starting to burn off in his veins. “Frankly, I haven’t fed him. I wanted to see how long he would take to weaken with hunger and Kylo has been thriving for about a year. No eating means he has no bodily functions related to eating—”

“Forgive me for my lack of delicacy, but he has the _parts _of a man and God knows that he… isn’t lacking,” Lady Phasma remarked, her gaze running over his body before he felt it pointedly resting on the groin of his pants. “Does… He is able to stand at attention?”

“Would you like to find out yourself?” Snoke glanced up as he continued to suture the flap of skin back into the place. The edge of his mouth twitched up; his interest clearly piqued by the woman’s question.

Kylo felt his pinky twitch as resentment began to burn in the pit of his stomach, a ringing rising to his ears. The humiliation that the question brought made his blood begin to grow heated as he tentatively tested his hand, only moving his fingers slight enough to know he had regained control of them.

Meanwhile, Snoke’s hooked needle dipped in and out of his skin. It was supposed to signal the end of this day’s torture, not the beginning of another, but it didn’t seem that he was going to be so lucky that Sunday afternoon.

“Lord, no!” she coughed. “Ab-Absolutely not. I was merely curious.”

“Because, yes, he can rise for the occasion,” Snoke assured her, tying off a stitch. “If you were wanting to use him, well… We aren’t nearly as pure as the world outside wants us to be, Lady Phasma. Really, it would be the same as going home and pleasuring yourself with your hand.”

She blushed uncomfortably, but she started to remove her glove as she rounded slowly towards the opposite side of the operating table. Holding the glove in her opposite hand, she carefully began to trail down his torso, starting between his pectorals and lightly stroking the center of his abs.

It shouldn’t have been arousing him, but he felt himself stiffen slightly and it shamed him.

“Oh, would you look at that?” Phasma purred as she traced his pubic bone. “It would seem that he likes this—”

With anger and adrenaline boiling away the remainder of the serum, Kylo pushed his massive frame up from the table before wrapping his hand securely around the woman’s throat while his other arm hung loosely at his side. He could feel the weight of it pulling against his stitches, the pain only hastening his attack.

Rage made his mind hazy as he bared his teeth and a growl rumbled in his chest. His grasp tightened as she watched her pale face slowly turn from red into purple as she clung to his arm, desperately trying to free herself.

“Kylo, put her down!” Snoke roared from behind, though he made no moves to stop the scene unfolding before them. He sounded as if he were demanding that his dog heel rather than trying to intervene in the death of a noblewoman. The words didn’t reach him. Logic and reason were gone, leaving only savage survival to guide him.

Before Kylo could even growl in reply to Snoke’s demand, he felt the sting of a syringe into his side. Dropping the woman who shuddered desperately for breath, he swung his arm in the direction of the pain. His fist met Hux’s chest, sending the man flying back into Snoke and the assortment of rusty operating implements with a crash.

As Kylo’s veins began to flare with a sick sensation, he realized that this wasn’t Snoke’s usual means of paralyzation. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t be there when it took its effect. Unsteadily, he stood before yanking the syringe from his flesh and fleeing towards the door as he tried to put as much distance as he could between him and the dazed trio.

There was a world outside his window and surely it couldn’t be crueler than what he had already faced. 

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾

Beebee dashed ahead of Rey, leading them down their familiar Sunday path to the little church that settled just right outside of the village. The chill still clung to the air as the wind pushed at Rey’s back, speeding her long the well-worn dirt road. She felt as if she were being rushed, the wind insisting that she pick up the pace as if she would never make to the church before sundown if she dawdled.

Her dog was already out of sight, having gone down the hill she was climbing and disappeared into the November mists. The little terrier was full of spirit and often sped ahead of her, leaving her to enjoy the fresh air. On that particular afternoon, her pace was quick as she had very little time for leisure.

The parishioners had long left service and if she planned to stay a week longer in the village, she would have just chosen another day to visit the churchyard. There were goodbyes to be said, though, long and final ones and bitter emotions to put aside.

She had often wondered if all orphans felt as she did. For the longest time she had hoped to find her parents alive and well, to be let back into the family with a gentle explanation that they had never meant to abandon her. Instead, she had found the pair buried and ten years dead with rumors whispered about town how they had died. Rey had never gotten a straight answer.

In the end it didn’t really matter as Rey had found her parents and was left with two simple truths. They were dead, and she was as alone as she ever was. Again, it was just her, but at least this time she found a little solace in having Beebee.

Rapid barking filled the air, tearing her from her melancholy. It wasn’t the playful sort of bark, Beebee’s most common when finding a small animal to chase or a child to tag. It was like an alarm, protective and warning her away, but she ignored the creature’s warning and rushed towards the noise blindly.

Rey had very little left in the world, and she wasn’t about to lose her dog to his own impulsiveness.

As she delved deeper into the mist, she finally found the little mutt snarling at a man who had collapsed to his knees. He was dressed in nothing more than a pair of trousers that appeared to be well worn and frayed at the ankles. It was freezing and the man was without even a shirt or a pair of socks on his feet.

“Beebee, leave him alone!” she shouted as she snapped her fingers at the creature, moving closer to the man at a hesitant pace. Beebee went silent but didn’t move from his crouched position, the hackles raised and practically vibrating with suppressed growls. “Sir, are you okay?”

Rey found that the poor man was ashen, his skin gray and his body littered in the most garish scars she had ever seen in her lifetime. There was no rhyme or reason to the marks, zigging and zagging at different depths and healed poorly. She couldn’t imagine the blade or even the battle that would cause such an assortment of wounds.

When he didn’t answer her, she crouched down to try to catch his gaze. “Sir?”

He tilted his head up at her and she froze.

It wasn’t the fact that his eyes seemed to glow with an otherworldly haze, nor was it that he had the complexion of someone in the grips of death. It wasn’t that his lips were tinged blue, nor that he seemed to be sweating despite the terrible cold of that November Sunday.

It was because she was gazing at the very man that she had spent days mooning over in that photograph only to come to the realization that he was very likely his own father’s killer. Seeing him in this state, she found herself doubting her previous conclusion. He was so weak, nearly dead. He must have been as much victim as his father was.

“Benjamin?” she breathed, her knees giving out as she reached over to push a thick lock of hair from his face. Weakly, she offered him a smile as she touched his cheek lightly. His lips twitched as he seemed to struggle for words.

“No. I’m not Benjamin.” The words were slow, deliberate, but deep and clear. “My name is Kylo. Kylo Ren. I’m not… Ben,” He groaned, holding his side. She glanced down, not seeing an injury, but she was certain by his state there was something wrong with him. There was no denying that.

Gingerly, she wrapped an arm around his waist and brought his arm to drape over her shoulders.

Mentally, she prayed that he had enough strength to at the very least walk. The man had at least eighty pounds on her and there was no way she would be able to drag him back to the village and the church was two miles away in the opposite direction.

“Okay, _Kylo_,” she grunted as she got him up to his feet. Beebee growled lightly but began to tentatively follow the pair as Rey started to lead him back down the hill. “Let’s… Let’s just get you out of the cold. Stay close to me and I’ll make sure to get you through the night.”

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾

Rey watched the peculiar man into the wee hours of the morning as he slept in her bed, his color never getting any better. He had stopped sweating, though, so she assumed that must be some sort of progress even if he remained sallow and gray. His breaths were even, she noted, his broad chest rising and falling in time. Their trek, she had feared, had put a strain on him, but the longer he rested the more he seemed to stabilize.

Their journey back to the tavern had been quiet as he burned with fever and barely hung on to consciousness. Those panting breaths had been in her ear, but at every attempt she made to slow their pace, he remained steadfast despite his worsening state.

Running, she realized with a familiar pang squeezing in her chest. Running from someone or something. It was an easy conclusion to draw by the marks on his skin and stitching on his shoulder. 

As soon as she had helped him into her bed, he had been out before she could even unfurl the covers to burn off the remainder of his fever.

She hadn’t told anyone about him. By the time she had reached the village, the sun had set, and the lamplighters were making their rounds to illuminate the dark streets. She had stuck to shadows, not wanting to draw attention to the half-nude man. If he was, as she suspected, truly Mr. Solo’s son, she wanted answers before she told Finn that she had found him.

His father was gutted, Ben was scarred, and he appeared to have been without any sort of mercy since his father had last seen him. 

Something had happened and left with only the vague clues left scarred into his body, it was too horrific for her to imagine.

As she sat on the edge of the bed, she traced a scar with her ring finger wincing at the keloid texture. He was still beautiful even if a bit broken, and not at all she had expected when she had been gazing at the proper man in Ben Solo’s portrait. In her head, she had imagined him to be a bit shorter, roughly his father’s height, and with a scholar’s frame. Instead, he was a broad man, all muscle, and scars. There was nothing more that she wanted to do than trace every mark with her finger, to explore his body by following the trails and paths mapped on his skin.

Biting her lip, Rey felt stupid for thinking it, after all, the man seemed to have nearly died out in the cold, but that didn’t stop her from being drawn to him.

It was as if she could feel a part of herself reaching for him from within, her soul as broken as his body, desperate to find its partner.

_Infatuation is for fools who have never felt true hunger_, she reminded herself as she lowered her hand, tracing a line from his jaw with a butterfly’s touch. A night watching vigil and a week with his portrait and she found herself feeling lost, tethered to a man that she didn’t know. _Is this infatuation? It feels more dangerous, more immense… __Like I'm standing at the edge of the cliff with nothing but ocean waves crashing below me. _

Her finger rested on his abdomen as she felt him begin to stir.

Brightening with a smile, she leaned forward prepared to ask how he was feeling.

She wouldn’t get the chance to ask, or even relax in that beat of relief. In an instant, he had moved with a blinding speed as he pinned her to her bed beneath his massive frame as his hands wrapped firmly around her throat.

As she kicked her legs, thrashing and gasping for air, her gaze wasn’t met with the anger or rage.

There was only fear in his haunted eyes, mirroring her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit. That's not good, huh? 
> 
> Yell at me on Tumblr at womp-rat-fever or on Twitter @womp_rat_fever.


	3. Sorrow is Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo wakes from a nightmare while Rey enters her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for [QueenOfCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers) for looking over the first half of this chapter. If you think this puppy is a manic mess now... It was worse. I'm trying to publish at a faster rate, readers. Call me out if you see a decline in quality.

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾

The hint of a touch had Kylo on edge, thrusting him from his fevered sleep with a jerk and the instinct of a frantic animal just freed from a trap. Waking to even the slightest touch just meant one thing, and it was a lesson he had learned well and quickly in his time spent with his Creator.

Touch would be followed by the thrust of a syringe, and that painful thrust would mean long hours under the bite of blade. He knew from experience that he had mere moments, barely even seconds to act before he would find himself back on that damned table, frozen and immobile, with Snoke softly tutting at the state of his innards and Hux coldly sneering in agreement. So, not willing to wait and be sedated, he reached up to seize his would-be attacker, rolling over to restrain them. 

Even in his frenzied state, he could tell that the world around him was wrong. It was as if the world had shifted sideways; he was in a bed that wasn’t his own and in a room that wasn’t the attic of Snoke’s manor. It was like something from a dream, or a memory long forgotten and foggy; the room left hazy with a softness that was not meant for him.

He tightened his hands around the smooth column that was the neck of his attacker without giving his setting another thought as he felt them fight beneath him, twisting in a frenzy as they gripped his forearms. They pulled against him to no avail, his own strength greater than theirs even as their legs flailed beneath him. 

Instinct propelled him but hate guided his hands as he straddled his attacker. Vaguely, he was aware of the smell of cheap perfume and the dim light of candles, but agitation stirred in him, making it impossible to focus on the small voice in the back of his mind.

_Stop, think… _it whispered, urging him to pause. With every jerking movement of the body beneath his own, he was brought back to the need to still this person who meant him harm. The attacker thrashed beneath him, and he knew that there was no time to stop and think; he could not hesitate.

_No time… _was his instinct’s answer. No time to waste at dispatching his attacker, and certainly no time to be at war with himself. _Like last time and the time before. There’s no time…_

A willowy neck bruised under gnarled fingers and reignited the fire that had been simmering in Kylo’s bones since the night he had been brought into the world. All the fear he had felt in that moment of his birth and moments after quieted his mind. All that mattered was the need to protect. 

His breath heaved heavily against his own ears. Almost as loud as the pounding of his heart that cracked like thunder against his sternum, making thoughts impossible as he stared unseeingly ahead.

“_B…Ben…_”

He flinched at the sound, the faint gasp of a woman as the thrashing beneath him finally quieted. It rose above his breathy panting and pounding heart, grounding him as he blinked rapidly. His gaze settled on his attacker, only to find that it wasn’t Snoke or Hux he had been struggling with, but a girl.

“Please… Please, Ben.”

_Wrong… She’s wrong… I’m not…_

His hands loosened just enough so that the woman that he was straddling was able to take in a single shallow, rattling breath. The intake of air reverberated against his palms in resounding rebellion. It felt like determination, like survival.

“Ben,” was her soft plea, resonating within him. Hearing that name in the same pleading tone, his hands clenched at a throat. A stab of anguish throbbed in his forehead as if something—a memory? —wanted to break to the surface, but he couldn’t let it. If he did, he’d drown in the agony of it. He knew that he would.

_Not Ben. I’m not…_

Still, his mind clung to the sound like a mooring, the focus slowly driving him from the fog of his feral stupor.

His gaze met hers and recognition lit in his mind, but even so his hands remained steadfast on her throat, an impulse away from stealing her breath away once more.

Somehow, though, he knew her. He didn’t move even as he became more aware of the warmth of her body beneath him and how smooth her neck was in his grasp. He struggled to place the girl. Even streaming with choked tears her eyes were fierce, and they were brightened by her determination to survive. He knew her.

_Sharp winds, loud laughter…_

As she took a shuddering breath from under his grasp, he felt the vibration of her throat once again against his palms. His arms trembled as he crouched over the girl, unable to ignore how she fit so perfectly between his thighs. She was slender, but tall and lean with just a hint of feminine softness barely sticking to her starving frame.

Kylo couldn’t remember a time when he’d had a woman like this, pinned beneath him, but there was something familiar about the sensation. It made his cock twitch ever so slightly despite the wrongness of the situation. The memory of his muscles recognized and reacted to her warmth. Another one of Ben’s paths, he wondered, left for him to fumble through until he relearned the man’s lessons.

To his very core he knew he wasn’t Ben Solo, but he was constantly reminded of how indebted he was to him. Perhaps his body was merely reacting because he was desperate for contact that lacked even a hint of cruelty.

In their stalemate, he found safety.

A faint ache rose in his shoulder, dimly reminding him why he wasn’t in the manor, and why the soft brush of fingers tenderly touching his abdomen had sent him reeling.

_I don’t want this. This isn’t… It’s not me…_

The color in her face began to lighten at her slight breaths, and he watched as a soft constellation of freckles rose against golden skin from beneath a loose halo of chestnut hair. Her hands rose in a hesitant tremble to his own, and he flinched, tightening his grasp ever so slightly.

Not tight enough to cut her breath off as he had only moments before, but enough to cause her eyes, which had shone with relief, to briefly flash with terror. Her pupils were unwavering pinpricks, never breaking their stare with her calculated gaze.

Still, she didn’t regain her struggle; she kept calm even as he held her down, pinned beneath him. Slowly her breath became slow and even against his hands, and he found himself watching the soft rise and fall of her breast.

As he stared down at her, her quiet breaths relaxed him like a metronome; lulling, almost hypnotic. His mind finally cleared as he met the cadence of her breathing.

Memories of his escape flooded back to him. Hux had injected him with something that had dulled in his mind and made it feel as if his blood had become acid that was eating away at his veins and capillaries. Fever had blistered through him, muddying his mind and dulling him.

He had fallen to his knees on the moors, struggling to find his footing and right himself before Hux came hot on his heels. Even though he had never spent even a few moments outside of the manor and knew little about the world beyond Snoke’s gates, he was wise enough to know that he hadn’t made it far. Kylo had thought that his escape had failed, that at any moment he would be dragged back to the manor to face punishment for his actions.

How he had ended up in this room with a stranger, he had no idea. Something had been lost, between the harsh winds and the determination to get as far away from the manor as he could before he could no longer walk.

He remembered a dog came from bounding and barking at him the mist, orange and white. A terrier, a rat catcher. The constant companion of…

_The girl._

Realization struck Kylo swallowed as he frantically studied her face, taking in the face he had longed to see for months as if he could know her by merely memorizing her face. To know her by something more than the little dog that trailed her or the worn shawl that she had clung to as the weather began to worsen the cold of winter chased the mild autumns away.

Vaguely, sense that he must be dreaming returned even as the haze of his fear continued to lift. The amount of time he had spent longing for a stranger often shamed him, staring out a window, longingly waiting for her to trail up the path…

And suddenly, he was face to face with her. 

Beautiful didn’t begin to describe her, but it was the only word that he had as he watched her. For all the books that he had scoured over and every poem he’d ever memorized, he was left with nothing more than the simple fact that he knew that she was lovely. Lady Phasma was the first woman he had seen up close and he hadn’t thought her to be ugly, but as he looked down at the girl with her forced calm, was striking and terrifying -- a storm rolling off the sea.

She was on edge; he could feel how tense she was beneath him, just waiting for him to waver so she could strike like lightning. Her jaw was set with a proud determination even as her lips trembled between breaths. Intelligence lied behind her eyes. Eyes, he realized, that weren’t green as he initially thought, but hazel becoming viridescent with the tears pricking at her lashes.

He waited for the fight, for her nails to dig deep into his skin, for her to yank and pull at him, for her to kick and thrash and fight. Any bout between them would end in his victory unless he let her flee. Fighting her would only end badly, but if he got up and let her out the door, they would both live to see another day.

The very thought of letting her leave, his Sunday afternoon girl, made his fingers tense. Hours of obsession had been spent under the knife, imagining her. Would her face match the laugh he had heard in early spring? The song of her voice that had haunted him, cursing him to crave her.

She would fight, though, as was sensible for anyone pinned beneath a dead man.

Her thumbs moved in soft circles against the back of his hands, weakening his resolve as the world finally broke through the haze of his panic completely. Her hands were rough, not like Lady Phasma’s that had been gloved and protected. They were well worked and calloused, but her touch was sincere and soft despite her fear.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ben.” Her voice was breathy, barely above a whisper as she spoke. Even though her words were steady, her heart was pounding even harder than his was, beating at the pace of a hummingbird’s wings. Fear was replaced with pity as her gaze darted to his chest, to his assortment of scars. “I-I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You’re the one who should be frightened.” Kylo’s voice was a strangled growl caught in his throat, the soreness of his veins pricking to slight aches into protests of fiery strain.

As his adrenaline continued to ebb, the muscles in his arms tremored and his hands finally loosened from her neck. The pain from Snoke’s exploration of his shoulder roared to life and he collapsed forward against her, softening the fall with this his forearms against the mattress under her before he shakily eased into her.

“It’s only… It’s only wise to be afraid of monsters,” he murmured weakly against the crook of her neck. Kylo inhaled her scent, a dab of cheap perfume heavy against his nostrils with her own earthy fragrance just beneath it. He nestled against the spot, his mouth resting just above her pulse as the smell clouded any thought that he had to climb off of her and escape.

Her warmth and her scent soothed him in ways that he didn’t think possible, putting his more feral impulses to rest at least for the moment.

Moments passed between them, an uneasy silence settling until he felt her fingers twine into his hair. He tensed, waiting for the sensation of her fist into his mane and yanking against the tender skin at the base of his scalp. She would bore into him with a cold indifference as everyone else had thus far in his existence.

Instead she threaded her fingers into his hair, stroking his head lightly.

“I’ve faced scarier beasts,” she murmured gently, her voice still trembling even as she continued her ginger caresses. “I’ve seen monsters before, sir, and you are no monster. You just seem like a man who awoke from a bad dream.”

Even as she spoke, her heart was pounding beneath her breastbone. Just below his chin, he could feel the fluttering rhythm much faster than his own as Kylo’s fear waned into her warmth.

She was still frightened, he realized. Lying to him to appease the monster, to keep him calm, but Kylo found that he didn’t care. Selfishly, he coveted every caress even as she lowered her hand to his scars. His arms tucked around the girl and held her into a gentle embrace.

_Keep her, _instinct whispered. 

Kylo shivered, his skin prickling in response to exploration of his marred planes. There was hardly an inch of skin that hadn’t been peeled back to appease Snoke’s scientific curiosity. He barely remembered a time when he had been untarnished, and his collection of imperfections had only grown since his birth.

She wasn’t looking at his imperfections, though, he realized. Not really. She had pleaded with Ben’s name one her lips, looking at him as if he were Ben. There was so little he knew about the man who had come before him, yet for so long he had resented him for even daring to exist and to fall into the hands of Snoke.

But as the girl continued to touch him, he envied Ben Solo and wished that just for a moment that he could be the other man and deserve her kindness and forced composure.

“Rey.”

His brow furrowed as he dared to look up at her. She brushed a fallen strand of hair from his eyes and rewarded him with a soft smile.

“That’s my name, Rey Johnson.”

“It’s nice to meet you… Miss Johnson.” Uncertainty rose to his voice, unsure if that was how he should be addressing her. Hux had taught him in various ways to address people even though he had yet to ever address anyone who crossed the threshold of Snoke's manor. It was hard to speak when he was paralyzed, but it had never stopped Hux from teaching him etiquette in the same way someone might teach their dog tricks to impress company. That only left him with the slight worry that Hux had taught him incorrectly purposely to embarrass him for the man's own amusement. When she didn't correct him, he relaxed. 

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Solo," she hummed lightly. "I’ve wanted to meet you for a little while now, but I never expected that it would be… like this.”

_That’s not… me… I’m not—_

Another caress of her fingers across his forehead silenced the correction. If being Ben Solo meant that he could stay in her arms and experience her kindness, perhaps it was better to be a dead man than a monster.

☽ ◦ ◯ ◦ ☾

“Don’t answer the door,” Rey had told Ben as she left him sitting on her bed. The worry in his eyes had made her pause, but only for a moment before tucking the elder Mr. Solo’s photograph into her coin purse. “Only if it’s an older woman or you hear scratching. The scratching is Beebee, my dog. He likes to wander. Please, just stay here. I’ll be back.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have left him alone. Not with how she had found him, so ill and lost on the moors. The sooner she spoke to Finn about Ben, the better. Whatever illness that he was suffering through was beyond anything she had seen before. He was so cold after the fever had receded, even with his body pressed against her own.

Rey adjusted the scarf around her neck, keeping her head low as she hurried down the docks away from the Walton Inn. There had been some redness there from where Ben had grabbed her along with some faint bruising. It wouldn’t be noticeable, she assured herself. Perhaps that was just hopeful thinking on her part, seeing a man instead of a monster.

Still, that didn’t make the experience any less frightening no matter how she had tried to mask it for Ben’s sake as well as her own. The way his body was littered with scars, she should have known better than to touch him. By his reaction, she was lucky to be alive. Her body was still humming with adrenaline, her heart no closer to becoming steady as she fought the urge to sprint through the village streets straight to the constabulary.

She didn’t need to draw that sort of attention to herself. The attention of a panicked girl, unsure of what to do with Ben tucked away in her room like a dirty secret, and certainly not with Plutt prowling around and looking for her.

Taking another unsteady breath, she filled her lungs with air and held the frosty mist in for a moment just to reassure herself that she could even as her lungs began to sting.

It had taken everything within her not to panic and lash out of at him after his hands had started to loosen. His hands had tremored lightly against her throat matching the frantic look in his eyes.

If he hadn’t looked so lost, she might have tried to hurt him. He was practically a head taller than her and could engulf her in his frame, but she could have tried scraping with him. She could have scratched and tried to bite…

She could have pressed her thumbs into his haunting eyes. She shivered at the thought.

Instead, she had caressed his hands and he’d fallen into her with relief. Ben had trusted her with his head pressed into the crook of her neck, no doubt hearing her heart pound, but still… He’d looked at her as anchor to moor himself and she’d allowed it. A new sensation met the quick beat in her chest, a warmth spreading. Trust wasn’t something easily won in this world as far Rey was able to see it, but Ben trusted her.

Bringing a hand to her chest, she smiled to herself.

“H-Hey, ska-skinny,” a voice rang out above the mid-morning crowd in the market and she felt a strong grasp on her forearm. The smell of whisky hit her before she could take stock of the man would had decided to grab her like she was a casual acquaintance. It was too early for that… unless he had stayed up through the night and made it to midmorning without sobering up.

Rey stiffened as she attempted to yank her arm from his grip, but that only made him latch on tighter. For a drunk regular of Maz’s she was surprised to find how strong his grip was. So strong that she couldn’t shake him. “Don’t m-make a s-scene. Just k-keep walkin’, alright?”

“Take your hand off of me before I make you,” Rey hissed. “If you don’t want a scene—”

“I-I r-really don’t care if you _do _make a scene, b-but I-I-I don’t think you really want eyes on you right now.” DJ spoke poorly, his words slurring as if he hadn’t slept off his last bender. Mixed in with his natural disposition to stutter, she was lucky to understand a word he was saying. Even so, his words were pointed, and he had gotten Rey’s attention.

“Y’see, sk-skinny, there’s word going around that some little g-g-gutterpunk stole from their, well _her_, boss b-b-back in London.” His eyes darted as he picked at his face nervously with another hand, his index finger focusing on a poorly healed scab. “N-Not just a few coins here and there n-neither, skimmed off the top that no one would ever notice. We’re not talking shillings, we’re talking p-pounds.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with me,” she said, deciding to remain curt and calm. To play dumb until someone caught wise was the safest course of action with a man like DJ. It helped that she was young and still held a bit of childhood softness in her features that left her looking a touch more innocent that often left her underestimated. “I haven’t been to London in months.”

“Y-Yeah, ta-ta-the thing is…” he drew out the words as if he was rolling the sentence in his mouth even with his stutter, tasting his words before spitting them out lazily. “This guy’s been looking for his thief for months. Says she’s a pretty thing, barely twenty, if that, with brown hair and a sharp look in her eyes. Th-That sounds like you, b-but what do I know? All I’m saying is… He’s offering a p-pretty h-hefty sum to whoever brings her in, and I was just wondering, sk-skinny, if maybe you’ve got a b-b-better… better offer.”

“You’ve seen where I spend my nights.” Rey didn’t like where this was going as dread twisted in her gut. She had thought DJ to be nothing more than a drunk, sitting at the end of Maz’s bar every evening until the inevitable happened and the heavy drink ended him by taking out his liver.

By the glint of his eye, she could tell that even if he was still running on last evenings whisky, he wasn’t so far gone to not have a plan ticking through his brain.

No, DJ wasn’t a stupid drunk, but he was a functional one. He had an idea and Rey wasn’t quite sure that she wanted to hear it. There was only a moment of hesitation before she cleared her throat lightly. “Why would you think that I have a better offer?”

“Eh, I just f-f-figured that you wanted to live through the week, I-I guess.” DJ shrugged as he pulled her into an alley with his tight grasp still on her arm as he looked both ways before he pushed her against the cold brick wall.

Letting go of her arm, he lowered his voice before he leaned against the wall beside her, resting an arm right above her head. She was trapped for the second time that day, and this predator was far less sympathetic than Ben was.

“Esp-Especially since I saw how desperate y-you were last night.”

_Click. _Her mind began firing as he spoke, his intentions only becoming more and more clear the more he meandered in voicing his thoughts.

“Y-You don’t normally bring bl-blokes home with you, skinny,” DJ continued, pressing forward as the contents of whatever barrel he had been sucking off wafted over her. “S-So, I-I’m just guessing that you might be out of m-money, but you’re still managing to keep your room at Maz’s place. Ah-Ah… As stingy as that woman is, you ain’t sleeping there without a f-fee. I was just thinking that if you’ve switched trades, I’d be willing to take something else instead of money. It would be just between you and me. A little alone time to keep Pl-Plutt off your back for a little bit longer. I’m just a g-gentleman like that.”

Her chest swelled, burning with an unfamiliar fury as she briefly stared up at DJ in disbelief.

Rey swung her leg out, taking out DJ’s ankle as she gave her forearm a firm yank just before he hit the ground. She placed the toe of her boot against his neck, stepping on his trachea so hard that she swore that he squeaked.

“You tell Plutt that you saw me, and I’ll kill you,” she hissed. “You tell anyone about what you saw last night, and I’ll kill you. You don’t know me. You’ve never seen me a day in your life. You’re too drunk to remember anything in the tavern. Do you understand?”

“I didn’t—” he wheezed.

“Do you understand?”

He coughed before nodding. She stepped back, dashing towards the mouth of the alley as she watched him clamber to his feet with disdain written plainly on his weathered face. For a beat, she waited as he leaned against the wall trying to catch is breath before scurrying back to the main street.

“Y-You _really_ should have made me a better offer, skinny,” DJ’s bark bit at her back before an eruption of convulsing coughs chased away any venom to his threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting closer to monsterfucking (or depressive living deadman fucking) I swear. I'm trying to force my demisexual ass not to be slowburn, so please be patient. 
> 
> Also, this six chapter fic has a chance of expanding to fit in all plot points and fucking, so be warned.


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